A39690:373
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing…
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing the death of her dear and only son wherein the boundaries of sorrow are duly fixed, excesses restrained, the common pleas answered, and divers rules for the support of Gods afflicted ones prescribed / by J.F.
London: printed for Robert Boulter, 1674
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Plea.
But I have lost a lovely obliging and most endearing child, one that was beautiful and sweet; it is a stony heart that would not dissolve into tears for the loss of one so desirable, so engaging as this was. Ah its no common loss!
1. Answer.
The more lovely and engaging your Relation was, the more excellent will your patience and contentment with the will of God in its death be; the more loveliness, the more self-denial, and the more self-denial, the more grace. Had it been a thousand times more endearingly sweet than it was, it was not too good to deny for God. If therefore obedience to the will of God do indeed master natural affections; and that you look upon patience and contentment as much more beautiful than the sweetest and most desirable ⟨p. 223⟩enjoyment on earth, it may turn to you for a testimony of the truth and strength of grace; that you can, like Abraham, part with a child whom you so dearly love, in obedience to the will of your God whom you love infinitely more.